


Thankful

by malevolentmango



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: An atrocious amount of turkeys really, Fluff, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Genji is a Little Shit, Humor, M/M, Mild Angst, Thanksgiving, This fic is incredibly cheesy you have been warned, Watchpoint: Gibraltar, like incredibly mild, past dad!Gabe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2018-08-31 14:31:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8582089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malevolentmango/pseuds/malevolentmango
Summary: It's nearly Thanksgiving at Watchpoint: Gibraltar, and Hanzo has no idea why Jesse McCree is so excited about turkeys, but he's not nearly as bothered as he should be.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first adventure into McHanzo fic! Hope you enjoy the silliness! :D
> 
> Big shout-out to [Tsoleil](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorQui) for beta reading this!

In retrospect, Hanzo should have expected that something was very, very wrong the second he walked out of his room at Watchpoint: Gibraltar one morning in mid-November only to find a giant, garishly-colored cardboard decoration of a turkey affixed to the wall opposite his door. He was generally a morning person, but there was just nothing that could prepare one for such a sight so early in the day. He found himself staring at the decoration bemusedly. There were so many questions…

 

How did it get there? Who put it there? Was the sign in it’s hands that read “Happy Thanksgiving!!” really meant to inspire joy in the hearts of those who saw it or was it actually a cleverly-designed harbinger of doom?

 

“Why is it wearing a hat?” he muttered, narrowing his eyes at the offending object.

 

“Ooh, I see Jesse’s gotten started early this year! I can’t believe all this stuff was still here…”

 

Hanzo finally tore his eyes from the turkey to see that Tracer, dressed in a tracksuit and clearly on her way for her morning run, had come upon him in the hallway in his time of distress. He immediately regretted looking away. The giant turkey was not the only decoration that now graced the walls of the Watchpoint: there were streamers along the upper walls, hastily taped in place, in a variety of autumn colors; a number of small cardboard cornucopia-nameplates pinned to the doors of all of their rooms (including, when he turned to look, his own door, where he saw “Hanzo <3” in a familiar chicken scratch); and, on the door that led back to the main part of the base, another multi-colored turkey decoration - only this one had a speech bubble hand-drawn on plain white paper taped up next to it on which _someone_ , in the same atrocious handwriting, had scrawled “Howdy!”

 

“…What?”

 

Tracer giggled at the look of horror on his face. “He used to do this every year! Or, well, whenever he wasn’t on a mission ‘round Thanksgiving that is. Used to drive Reyes mad, insisting Blackwatch should get a holiday so he’d have time to decorate whatever base we were all at at the time.” There was something slightly sad about her smile. Hanzo wondered if she regretted mentioning the old commander at all. He didn’t know the whole story behind what happened with Reyes and Morrison - not that anyone really did - but the bits and pieces he’d picked up from talking with Jesse and some of the others always left them all wearing the same sad smile.

 

“How did Overwatch ever live through several years of this nonsense?” he asked, gesturing at the turkey in front of them.

 

Lena just laughed and shrugged. “You get used to it!” She gave Hanzo a wink and one of her signature salutes before blinking down the hall to head outside, pausing only to say “Howdy!” to the other turkey in a cheerfully terrible impression of Jesse’s accent as the door slid open for her.

 

Hanzo highly doubted that several years was enough to time to get used to this.

 

~~~

 

A few days later, Hanzo found himself musing that he probably didn’t have several years to get used to it. He was going to die in an explosion of orange-and-brown-tinted turkey feathers of his own design (possibly with some help from that rabid Junker) long before Thanksgiving, and with any luck he would take Jesse down with him so that no one else would have to suffer. It would be a noble-enough death, he thought, glancing over at the man in question. Jesse was at the wheel of their large transport van as it clattered down the hidden road leading from the Watchpoint into Gibraltar proper, chattering away about his Thanksgiving plans. Or at least a better one than a mysterious car accident…

 

“—and we’re gonna have to make a stop at that party store, ya know, that new one downtown? Satya said she saw all sortsa Halloween stuff in the windows when they went by it last month, they’re bound to have Thanksgiving stuff now and I reckon the kitchen could use a few finishin’ touches—”

 

It was Hanzo and Jesse’s turn on the monthly rotation to make a supply run into the city of Gibraltar. But since Winston always handled the ordering of their regular provisions ahead of time, all anyone really had to do was pick up the supplies at the designated location and enjoy their few precious hours of off-base free time.

 

Which was easier said than done when one’s supply run companion was Jesse McCree. The man had requested this month in particular so that he could buy a positively extravagant amount of extra food for a Thanksgiving feast that was still a week away. And, apparently, _more decorations_. Winston had supposedly thought that an archer with a short temper was the natural choice to accompany the mad cowboy on such an outing.

 

“—since everyone could get together for this, it’s gonna be a damn good time, just you wait and see, darlin’—”

 

Hanzo frowned, watching as the city of Gibraltar slowly came into view through the trees that lined either side of the poorly-maintained road. He’d found himself spending an extraordinary amount of time with Jesse since he first joined Overwatch several months ago; when he wasn’t in the training rooms or trying to mend his relationship with his brother, he always somehow found himself drawn to the man. Sometimes they trained together, spending hours at the practice range competing for the best scores. Sometimes they argued over whether Jesse’s old cowboy films should really be counted as “classics” or simply thrown in the bin where they belong (Hanzo knew this argument to be futile, but witnessing Jesse’s spluttering indignation over a cup of tea was worth the trouble). And sometimes, late at night, awoken by another nightmare and unable to erase the imagined blood from his hands, he would find Jesse already awake in the kitchen, chasing away his own demons with what was surely an unhealthy amount of black coffee. And he would smile up at Hanzo from his seat at the kitchen table and tell him to “pull up a chair, partner, ain’t no sense in bein’ miserable alone when I got you here with me,” the grin on his face like a flame burning through the darkness left by his dreams…

 

The large dip where the secret path joined the main road leading into Gibraltar jolted him out of his musings, and he blushed slightly as Jesse broke off in the middle of whatever he’d been rambling about to laugh at his obvious surprise. Hanzo glared at him. “Focus on your driving, McCree,” he said, the statement lacking most of the bite that it would have when he first met the man, much to his dismay.

 

Jesse just chuckled once more. “You got it, sweetheart.”

 

As they made their way quickly through the streets of Gibraltar to the pickup location, he begrudgingly admitted to himself that Winston may not have been so far off the mark with his assignments after all.

 

Loading their regular supplies into the van took almost no time between the two of them, and all too soon Hanzo found himself trailing through the local grocery store after Jesse. The man muttered to himself as they roamed the aisles about stuffing and pork and, of course, turkeys. As in, multiple. Hanzo watched in horror as the man loaded two whole turkeys into their cart and paused briefly to consider a third before shrugging and placing it in with the other two. When Jesse glanced up and saw the look on his face, he simply grinned and said, “I’ll betcha 20 bucks Reinhardt’ll eat a whole one by himself.”

 

Hanzo scoffed, fighting the answering grin that threatened to slip onto his face at that mental image. “Hardly a fair wager, seeing as you apparently do this every year.”

 

Jesse’s smile turned into something much more genuine as he looked at Hanzo. “Every year that I could. It’ll be nice to have you there this time.” The other man tipped his hat down to hide his eyes. “And all the other new recruits, of course.”

 

To his horror, Hanzo strongly suspected that the pleasant fluttering in his stomach had very little to do with the prospect of a nice group dinner with his new teammates.

 

~~~

 

“I hate you, Jesse McCree.”

 

Hanzo was going to find out who thought it would be a good idea to build a party store in the tiny city of Gibraltar, which absolutely did _not_ need to have a party store no matter what a certain cowboy said, and he was going to kill them. Or possibly, since he was supposed to be some sort of hero now, just intimidate them a bit. Either way, he would have his revenge on the person who was responsible for his current bout of torture.

 

And then, he would hunt down Jesse.

 

“Aww come on, darlin’, it’s only a little bit further…”

 

Jesse grinned sheepishly at him from behind the wheel of the van, clearly trying his best not to laugh outright when Hanzo turned to stare at him incredulously. His companion, who was apparently an actual lunatic and not just a man with uncannily good aim who happened to dress like one, had gone insane in that store. It had taken them four trips to load all of his purchases into the back of the van. And as it turned out, when one tries to fit provisions for an entire base full of people, a pile of extra Thanksgiving food, and roughly one-third of a party store into a single van, some things tended to get left behind.

 

Which was how Jesse’s giant plush turkey, complete with a dangling wattle, a jaunty pilgrim’s hat, and enough cotton fiber to make a t-shirt for every single person in Overwatch, had found it’s way into the only available space left in the van:

 

Hanzo’s lap.

 

“I hate you.”

 

“Now don’t be like that, sugar,” Jesse said as he navigated the rough road back up to the Watchpoint, his voice entirely too gleeful for Hanzo’s liking, “I’ll have you know that I’m mighty envious of that turkey right now.”

 

“Why on earth would you be envious of a _stuffed turkey_?”

 

“Well, because it’s got the best seat in the house, of course.”

 

Hanzo was stunned into silence as they shared a single charged look across the cabin of the van, Jesse winking coyly at him before turning his attention back to searching for unexpected potholes. He felt his face flush for the second time that day. His pulse was racing, and he suddenly found the sheer cliff face on his side of the van particularly interesting. Hanzo couldn’t decide whether he wanted to corner Jesse the second they made it back to the base and press him up against a wall…or beat the stupid, smug grin off his face with his own stuffed turkey.

 

Possibly both. He wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that.

 

They had been skirting the edge of this… _thing_ between them for weeks now, and it was starting to take a toll on Hanzo’s mental state. He would be lying to himself if he said that the man’s casual touches and the low timbre of his voice and the way he accepted Hanzo into his life without judgment did not strike a fire within him. He wanted to push Jesse away, to tell him he had better, more suitable options - but he wanted, just as fiercely, to keep his damn mouth shut until Jesse came to open it for him. His hand clenched into a fist where it rested against his thigh. It was a vicious cycle. Every time they stepped closer to that line - every time shared conversation and laughter over warms cups of coffee and tea, every time they shared a secret grin as they flowed together seamlessly on the battlefield - Hanzo would come to his senses and attempt to disappear. To leave Jesse free from the weight of having a…partner like him. Until Jesse would inevitably come to drag him out of his melancholy and the cycle started all over again.

 

That vicious, glorious cycle.

 

He shook himself from his musings when the van rolled to a halt back at the Watchpoint. Hanzo turned to demand that Jesse remove the plush monstrosity from his person immediately and found that the man was smiling at him again and opening his mouth to say something. But whatever it was he wanted to say was quickly overshadowed by a shrill screech coming from Hanzo’s side of the van.

 

“O-M-G! What is _that_?!”

 

With a sinking feeling, Hanzo turned to find Hana, the bearer of said screech, now laughing so hard that she was bent over and clutching her sides. Lúcio stood beside her with one hand holding a football, which the pair must have been kicking around, and the other covering his mouth as he tried not to follow Hana into a laughing fit.

 

“Seriously _oppa_ , how much time did you spend in the arcade to win that thing?” Hana said after taking a breath, still fighting down giggles as Lúcio finally lost his internal battle and burst out laughing.

 

Hanzo decided that between the humiliation and the long day of shopping made even longer by having spent it with Jesse, he’d had just about enough of this whole outing. He promptly shoved the stupid turkey in the man’s general direction and fled from the van into the safety of the Watchpoint, ignoring the trio of voices behind him calling for him to come back. He glared up at the cardboard cornucopia bearing a heart next to his name as he tapped in the code for his room. It took an impressive amount of restraint not to tear the stupid thing down, and he lamented, not for the first time, that it was impossible to slam shut the electronic sliding doors that Overwatch so foolishly preferred.

 

~~~

 

He avoided Jesse for nearly a week this time around.

 

This was not exactly intentional; the Watchpoint was a big place, after all, and it was entirely possible to go whole days without seeing certain teammates. Angela, for example, was rarely seen outside of the medbay unless she was grabbing a quick meal or going on a mission, and it was positively shocking to see Torbjörn away from his workshop unless there was drinking involved. Thus, it was perfectly reasonable for Hanzo to go several days without encountering a certain cowboy (although the same could not be said for _all of his damn decorations_ ). And the fact that he’d had no problem stopping for a chat with Hana the day after the van incident when she came to apologize for laughing at him should not be considered as evidence of anything.

 

Hanzo sighed. The view from the rooftops looking out over the Bay of Gibraltar at night was splendid, but ultimately not a good enough distraction from his thoughts. And he had a feeling that even if the big Thanksgiving celebration were not taking place tomorrow, he would be thinking about Jesse regardless.

 

God, he _missed_ Jesse. It seemed that he’d spent almost every day since he arrived at the Watchpoint learning whatever he could about the man underneath the ridiculous cowboy outfit, picking him apart and always, always revealing too much of himself in return. Jesse was equal parts the joyful, gregarious man who was almost too friendly and loyal to a fault and the weary, beaten down vigilante who could run from the bounty on his head but not from his past. And Hanzo _wanted_ him, both versions of him, any version that he could get.

 

He just wasn’t sure if he _should_.

 

Genji would probably tell him he was being ridiculous, that he was over-thinking things, that—

 

“You are distressed over nothing, _aniki_.”

 

What was that phrase Jesse was so fond of saying? Speak of the devil and he will appear? Hanzo glanced over his shoulder to see that his brother had silently climbed up to join him on the roof, the metal plates of his new body reflecting the light of the moon.

 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Genji.”

 

“Oh, so you’re not sitting up here in the dark brooding about Jesse? My mistake then.”

 

Hanzo narrowed his eyes at the impassive gleam of Genji’s faceplate in the darkness. He may not be able to see his brother’s face, but he was familiar enough with the mocking tone of his voice.

 

They sat in silence for several minutes, both of them staring out across the bay. Brothers still despite the vastness of everything that had happened between them, and that was why Hanzo resolutely did not shove him off the roof and into the sea below when Genji said, “Perhaps you could bring him flowers. Or maybe a cactus would be more fitting…”

 

“Genji…” he growled, turning to glare at the younger man.

 

“He thinks that he pushed you too much,” he said before Hanzo could get any further, a note of seriousness slipping into his electronically-enhanced voice. “I think that if you do not push back, Hanzo, you will lose your chance.”

 

Hanzo was quiet for a moment. “You discussed this with him?”

 

“Of course. He is my friend.”

 

“And this does not…bother you?”

 

“Why should it?” Genji tilted his head as if Hanzo was being particularly dense. Hanzo scowled. “I want you to forgive yourself, Hanzo. I want you to be happy. If that means a good friend of mine will be happy too, then even better.”

 

Hanzo looked away, considering, unable to respond as he stared up at the night sky. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Genji stand up and prepare to slip back down off the roof.

 

“Whatever you decide, do not miss the festivities tomorrow. It is important to him.”

 

Perhaps, just this once, he should listen to his little brother. The night sky above the Bay of Gibraltar was the only witness to his quiet response: “I do not intend to.”

 

~~~

 

Hanzo had absolutely no idea what he was going to say.

 

He prided himself on being the type of man who only said things when they were necessary to say, rather than filling the world with every bit of nonsense that passed through his head, like a certain cowboy he knew. But it was past midnight, and there was a light on under the door of the kitchen, and said cowboy was the only one likely to be in there at this time of night. And he had no idea what to say, but he was done with saying nothing at all.

 

When he walked into the kitchen, Hanzo did indeed find Jesse. He was sitting towards the center of the large table that formed the dining half of their communal kitchen, arranging what looked like a larger version of the cornucopias that lined the doors of all their rooms. Hanzo could only assume that this was one of his final finishing touches for the celebrations tomorrow - as if there hadn’t been enough decorations lining the walls of the kitchen already for the past two weeks.

 

He wondered if he had now reached a level of acceptance so low that he simply wasn’t phased by Jesse’s eccentricities anymore. Or perhaps that’s just what affection did to you.

 

Jesse looked up at the sound of the door opening, and his eyes widened when he saw who was standing in the doorway.

 

“Hanzo!” he said, setting down what looked like a plastic ear of corn. “Been a while, partner.”

 

“Why is this so important to you?” Hanzo asked, gesturing vaguely at the cornucopia on the table and the streamers on the walls.

 

Jesse looked confused by the question for a moment, as if that hadn’t been what he’d been expecting Hanzo to say at all. And he was right to think so, but it was better than the paralyzing silence that had been his only alternative on the way here.

 

“All the Thanksgiving stuff, ya mean?” Jesse glanced around at all the decorations and gave an embarrassed sort of shrug. “Well you know me, darlin’, I don’t do anythin’ halfway.”

 

At this, Hanzo just gave the other man a look of mild contempt; Jesse chuckled and stood up, abandoning his cornucopia to step closer to where Hanzo still stood indecisively in the doorway, as if not entirely sure if he would need an escape route or not.

 

“You really wanna know?” Jesse asked. Hanzo just nodded, watching the way the taller man’s eyes shined as he smiled. “Well, I don’t remember much about my life before Deadlock, but I do remember Thanksgiving dinners with my family. Ma and Pa both still alive, my sisters teasin’ me ‘bout somethin’ or other, all that good food…” He trailed off, and the wistfulness in the way Jesse talked about the family he had barely known made Hanzo want to wrap his arms around the other man and never let him go. “Anyhow, there wasn’t much time for that sorta thing in Deadlock; I thought that was just another thing I’d lost along the way. And then Reyes…”

 

Jesse gave a soft, bitter sort of laugh at the thought of his old commander, his eyes distant, as if he was staring back into the past and reliving it all again. “We were tradin’ stories one night on a long recon mission, and he asked why I never talked about anythin’ before Deadlock. And when I explained how all I rightly remembered was Thanksgiving, he went sorta quiet and then dropped the topic completely. Started talkin’ bout the crew we were keepin’ an eye on.” Jesse chuckled. “Two months later, it’s Thanksgiving, and Reyes’d gathered up all the ol’ Overwatch crew - some of ‘em you’ve met, Angie, Reinhardt, Ana, some of ‘em are long gone - and we had ourselves the best Thanksgiving dinner I’d had in years. Made me realize I still had a family, even if we weren’t related by blood.” Jesse smiled slightly. “And I guess Reyes started somethin’ he didn’t know I was gonna finish quite so enthusiastically.”

 

Hanzo chuckled, imagining what a terror a younger Jesse McCree must have been to his commanding officer. “I suppose if that is what all of this,” he gestured to the decorations plastered on every available surface, “is about, I can handle a few be-hatted turkeys.”

 

Jesse laughed softly and took another step closer to Hanzo, slowly closing the distance between them. “Well, family’s important and all, but that’s not all Thanksgiving is about.”

 

Hanzo, distracted by the way Jesse’s face transformed when he laughed, murmured, “What else?”

 

“It’s about remindin’ yourself what you’re thankful for. The things and the people you got in your life that make it worth livin’. And I’m damn thankful that Overwatch is back, and I get to see all these faces that I love every day again, but mostly?” Jesse lifted his flesh hand to stroke lightly down Hanzo’s cheek, and Hanzo jolted at the contact. He fought down the urge to lean into the touch, his eyes never leaving the other man’s. “Mostly, darlin’, this year I’m thankful I got to meet you. I’m thankful I get to be part of yer life…in whatever way you’d want a beat-up ol’ cowboy like me.”

 

Hanzo was not used to feeling helpless. It wasn’t in his nature to let people get so close to him, to…let them become _meaningful_ to him. For the last decade he’d spent on the run before joining Overwatch, he had been alone. He had learned to deal with the loneliness, to cope with regret in order to survive another day - he was never helpless. But this wasn’t a situation that could be resolved with the use of Stormbow. This was Hanzo, the man who wielded dragons like breathing, confronted with a _yearning_ so powerful that he thought it might just choke the life out of him.

 

And he was helpless but to respond in kind.

 

“Jesse…” he whispered, staring up at the taller man, his voice colored with awe. Hanzo lifted his hand to cover the one that rested against his cheek and used the other to grasp the front of Jesse’s loose-fitting night shirt, pulling him down so that he could press their lips together. He felt more than heard the low, relief-tinged whine that burst from Jesse’s mouth at the contact. The kiss was drawn out, chaste and tender. A testament to words unspoken. Hanzo linked his fingers with Jesse’s against his cheek, a shiver running through him when Jesse’s metal hand slid around his waist to pull him closer, sliding smoothly across the fabric of his _kyudo-gi_ to rest palm-flat against his lower back.

 

If this was what it felt like to finally break the endless cycle between them, he thought, he had only himself to blame for waiting so long to do it.

 

When Hanzo pulled away only to have Jesse’s mouth chase after his instinctively, his eyes closed and his face so, so open, he nearly gave in then and there. But a kitchen in the middle of the night was no place to take this any further, and more than anything in that moment, Hanzo realized that he wanted to _savor this_ ; if this was going to happen, he wanted it to happen slowly, perfectly. He wanted to do this right.

 

Jesse opened his eyes, and they were dark with promise. “Hanzo, darlin’…” He brought Hanzo’s hand up to press his lips against the archer’s knuckles, staring deep into Hanzo’s eyes as he did so. Hanzo had a feeling that if he asked, Jesse would not hesitate to take him back to his room and show him what he’d been missing while he’d been obstinately refusing to claim what was right in front of him.

 

“There will be plenty of time for this later, won’t there? And besides, I think you have a centerpiece to finish,” Hanzo said, although he pressed a quick kiss into Jesse’s cheek, just because he could.

 

The slow grin that worked it’s way across the Jesse’s lips almost undid Hanzo’s control right there, and Jesse thankfully took a step back, although he did not let go of Hanzo’s hand.

 

“Help me finish it, sugar?” he asked, giving him a little tug back towards the table, as if unwilling to let him go.

 

Hanzo found that putting together a Thanksgiving decoration was far less of an annoyance than the trip into town to get the supplies had been; but perhaps, he thought, that was just because Jesse had nudged his chair as close to Hanzo’s as humanly possible, their thighs pressed together and leaning into each other’s space as they worked.

 

~~~

 

_One year later_

 

In retrospect, Hanzo knew he’d had time to prepare for this day, but even after waking up to the same cardboard turkey outside his door every single day for two weeks, the madness that took over Jesse on Thanksgiving Day was the sort of thing that took one look at other people’s preparations, laughed hysterically, and then shot said preparations in the face.

 

“Hanzo, sweetheart, could ya get the potatoes outta the pantry? And the extra onions? Oh, and find that big square pan that Reinhardt tried to use as a helmet for his Halloween costume? That’s gotta be the right size…” Jesse trailed off, his attention drawn back to the mixture he was stirring frantically in a pot on the stove.

 

Hanzo just rolled his eyes, an amused smile playing across his lips at his partner’s ramblings, and ventured off to find the things he’d asked for. He found the potatoes and onions quickly enough and was searching around for the pan when a voice behind him said, “You know _aniki_ , I think you might be _whipped_ , as the Americans like to say.”

 

He turned to find Genji standing in the threshold of the walk-in pantry, holding the pan Jesse had asked for. Hanzo narrowed his eyes at his brother, then walked over and dropped the food he was carrying in the pan with a devious smirk. “What we do in the privacy of our room is no concern of yours, Genji.”

 

The slack-jawed look he imagined hidden behind Genji’s face plate caused him no small amount of glee as he grabbed the pan out of his brother’s hands and took everything back out to Jesse in the kitchen.

 

Jesse had recruited everyone with even a passing knowledge of cooking to help him with the meal, so that by the time it was ready half of Overwatch was exhausted and possibly contemplating murdering the man with a turkey leg. But when they all finally sat down around the table together, it was to smiles all around. Dinner was pure chaos, of course - everyone reaching over each other, shouting for things to be passed down, Reinhardt trying to claim an entire turkey for himself - but it was the smaller things that Hanzo noticed. The way Hana, who always had some kind of device in her hand, was instead focused on a conversation with Lúcio, who in turn was seated next to Satya with no complaints from either of them. The way Fareeha was laughing as Ana told stories of past holidays at the Watchpoint, even coercing Morrison into joining in. The way Genji had removed his face plate around so many people without even flinching and was smiling delightedly as the omnic monk, Zenyatta, who had arrived at the base just last month, asked Genji to describe what turkey tasted like. And the way that Jesse was looking around the table at everyone, probably ravenous from cooking all day but not even touching his food, his eyes a little watery and his big, toothy smile so bright that for a moment Hanzo found himself unable to look away - content to just soak up the happiness that radiated off of his partner.

 

Hanzo reached for Jesse’s hand where it rested on the table next to his fork and gave it a squeeze. Jesse startled slightly and turned his head to look at him. He blinked rapidly and reached up to tip down a hat that wasn’t there since he’d set it aside earlier when he started cooking. Hanzo chuckled at the reaction and Jesse was grinning even as he blushed.

 

“Eat, Jesse. It would be a shame not to enjoy what you worked so hard on,” he said, squeezing the man’s hand again before returning to his own meal.

 

“Right you are, darlin’.”

 

~~~

 

“I have never been so full in my life,” Hanzo groaned as they walked back to their room. Between the dinner, the after-dinner drinks, the _seven different kinds of pie_ , and all the talking and laughing and reminiscing, he felt like he could sleep for a week.

 

Jesse snorted. “Honey, dinner was hours ago, and anyway—”

 

“I stand by what I said.”

 

“— _and anyway_ , you said the same exact thing last year.”

 

Hanzo thought back to last Thanksgiving - how much his whole world had changed since then. But last year was where it all started, where he’d taken a chance on something he wanted instead of pulling away like he’d always done before. He looked up at the taller man, considering, as the door leading to the dormitories closed behind them and Jesse - ridiculous man that he was - tossed a “Howdy!” over his shoulder to the cardboard turkey on the back of it.

 

“I suppose I did,” he said, reaching down to link their fingers together and tugging Jesse through the door of their room.

 

Jesse made a beeline for their dresser, shedding clothes as he went, clearly eager to change and climb into bed after such a long day. Hanzo followed his motions more slowly, watching the way the moonlight coming in through their window picked out the lighter tawny strands of his hair and the way the muscles shifted across his broad back as he pulled on his favorite loose sleep shirt. He tried to imagine a future in which he didn’t see these things on a regular basis, and was quietly pleased to come up with nothing at all.

 

Hanzo thought he was starting to understand why this holiday was so important to his partner.

 

“I never told you, back then,” Hanzo said later, after they had slipped under the covers, his head cradled against Jesse’s chest with the man’s arms wrapped securely around him, his fingers tracing idle patterns across the fabric of Jesse’s shirt, “what I was thankful for.”

 

“And what’s that, sweetheart?” Jesse’s voice was sleep-drowsy, but Hanzo felt him perk up at his words.

 

“I was thankful that you saw something in me that was worth getting to know. Something I was only barely starting to reconcile with myself. And now, I am thankful for every day that you are here with me.”

 

Jesse didn’t say a word, but when Hanzo shifted upwards so that he could look into the man’s eyes, his face was so open and brimming with emotion that he almost couldn’t continue. His voice sounded almost too loud to his own ears in the silence of the night around them as he said, “I love you, Jesse McCree. I devote myself to you alone, for as long as you will have me.”

 

“Hanzo…”

 

Jesse threaded his fingers through Hanzo’s hair and pulled him down for a deep kiss, the kind that settled the restlessness in his bones and made the whole world hazy and distant, until the only things Hanzo knew were Jesse’s mouth and his hands and the weight of his affection, and the surety that those things were _his_ , from all the days before he felt himself worthy of them and on to all the days in the future.

 

“I love you too,” Jesse murmured against his lips, the words interspersed through dozens of gentle kisses and the upward curl of his grin, “Happy Thanksgiving, darlin’.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to freak out about McHanzo with me, you can find me on tumblr [here](http://malevolentmango.tumblr.com).


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